by Gayl Jones
She be talking about them Aztec women priests and I starts to tell her about the Daughters of Nzingha and they priestess, but I don’t, I just listen. I don’t know if them Daughters of Nzingha consider theyselves a true secret society, though. ’Cause if they was a true secret society. Monkey Bread wouldn’t be writing about them in her letters, and I wouldn’t even know they a Daughters of Nzingha. Or maybe they’s a Daughters of Nzingha they wants peoples to know about and a Daughters of Nzingha that is secret.
I met this guy in the class who knows more about Chicano history than anyone. He likes my stories. He’s not really Chicano, though, he’s a Mexican. In Mexico he usedta be a mining engineer, but he’s really a part of the Chicano community now. He works in the community, you know. He’s always going into the factories and the migrant camps and working with the huelguistas, the strikers and shit. And union organizers and shit. He’s part Indian, part Yaqui. He told me all about the Tomochi war when the Yaquis revolted, you know. And the Tarahumara Indians. He says I’ve got features like a Tarahumara Indian. . . . They’re supposed to be the Indians the gringos couldn’t subdue. . . .
You sound like you’re in love.
Do I? Naw, he’s got a wife.
You still sound like you’re in love.
I don’t play that, Mosquito, plus I ain’t no fool. . . . He says I’m very hembrismo. That’s like machismo except a woman. In Mexico his wife usedta be a doctor, but here she works as a pecan sheller. They both work in the same factory. Jovita. Jovita and Joaquín Vasquez de Agüello. Actually, she was born in Rio Abajo, New Mexico, but says that where she went to school they punished her one time for speaking Spanish on the playground and so her father took his family to Mexico—so she grew up in Mexico. In Hornitos. . . .
Say what?
Hornitos, a mining town, that’s where she met Joaquin. They came here as refugees, all legal I mean, but he almost got deported, though, ’cause they tried to brand him a communist agitator or some shit or socialist or some shit, but he calls himself a labor defender. Anybody who defends workers, you know. He considers me a real trabajadora, a real working woman, ’cause I’ve worked in canneries, in clothing factories, packed crackers, worked as a seamstress and shit. Even worked in a minor factory. But he’s the first man I’ve ever met who I think genuinely believes a woman should be as free as a man. Maybe he’s just jiving me, you know how men do, but I don’t think so.
You’re in love, girl.
You know I don’t play that. There some people that says all’s fair in love and war, but not me. If a man’s got a wife, then I don’t play that. But he don’t call me Delgadina, he calls me Isabella—that’s my middle name. Delgadina Isabella Rodriguez, or he calls me Isabellita but I prefer Isabella, that’s more equal. But I ain’t no fool, girl.
She pinches her cheekbones till they blush, then she straightens her do-rag.
I don’t play that, she repeat. Plus, I ain’t no fool.
I be thinking about them people that protest too much. She keep saying she don’t play that probably mean she be thinking about playing with some wife’s man. I don’t play that myself, though. Course John Henry Hollywood were Monkey Bread’s John Henry, but she ain’t he wife and I didn’t start going with John Henry till Monkey Bread moved to California. I puts the key in the ignition and we head away from the Community Center. I’d been watching Raymond to see if he’d meet somebody, but he just lit another cigarette. And I don’t want him to think I’m spying on him.
This friend of mine says myth is a race, I says as we head away from the Community Center. Like you say that racial purity a myth, he say that myth itself is a race.
You mean race itself is a myth.
What I say?
Myth itself is a race.
She open my glove compartment, push aside my stun gun and flashlight, and take out some of my Jungle Jerky and start chewing. She must be allergic to that Jungle Jerky too ’cause she be scratching.
Race is a myth, I say.
Race ain’t no myth, chica girl, whoever told you that was shitting you. She offer me some of my Jungle Jerky.
Muchas gracias. Oh, he didn’t say it hisself, he said somebody else said it.
Whoever told him was shitting him. . . . Probably a gringo. Probably a gabacho. They be telling you race is a myth when it in they interest, otherwise they don’t treat race like no myth. I signed up for detective school. They be having us take one of them karate classes too. I seen you watching them kicking ass. You oughta sign up for that class, chica. I know a little karate. I think every woman should know how to kick ass. I be learning to work with computers and learning about those miniature surveillance devices and shit, I mean for detective school, but I might have to kick some ass too, chica girl, so you gotta learn karate, but I was talking to the karate teacher, and he says the object of karate is to not kick ass, but to know how to kick ass if you have to. Anyhow, chica girl, I signed up for that detective school. Wanna celebrate?
Sure. But he ain’t no gringo, or gabacho either, I says, defending Ray, though it ain’t Ray she calling the gringo and gabacho it the somebody else said it. Plus, ain’t gringo and gabacho the same thing? I heads in the direction of her bar.
Not my bar. You ever been to a storefront cantina? A real cantina. You ever had any pulque?
I stops at this truckstop restaurant. They’s a waitress there looks just like Miguelita. I sits down in one of the booths and orders breakfast.
Soapjourner? How come they call you Soapjourner? asks the waitress, looking just like Miguelita and acting just like she know me. She holding the steaming pot of coffee in one hand and straightening the strap of her bra with the other. Got on one of them bright yellow waitress outfits. Butterfly yellow. And she got yellow hair too. She say her grandfather a Tasmanian aborigine, but she don’t look nothing like no Tasmanian aborigine herself, she look just like that Miguelita, except she a older woman and she ain’t acting like no loca, though I don’t think that Miguelita as loca as everybody say she is.
She as friendly as Miguelita, and she tell me the reason she be gawking when she seen me drive my truck up is they ain’t no women truck drivers in Tasmania and certainly ain’t no other African-American women truck drivers on this route. But she say they is another spliv on the route. Don’t you African Americans call yourselves splivs? Where you from?
South Texas.
So how come you a trucker?
You know, the romance of the road.
I’m looking at the menu and she start advising me about that menu. Advising me not to order any of they stew, ’cause she be calling it slumgullion stew. Some of these galoots likes slumgullion stew, though, she be saying. You tell some of these gents it’s slumgullion stew, they orders it anyhow. Not that they all gents.
Name’s Sojourner, I says. They calls me Soapjourner on account I carry industrial and ecological detergents.
Then I explains what a ecological detergent is and she be saying that’s the kinda detergent they uses, ’cause the dishwasher be allergic to them chemicals, plus that ecological detergent it clean them dishes better, except but they uses that liquid ecological detergent and me I carry that powdered ecological detergent. I don’t tell her ’bout my other names, Jane and Nadine. I don’t tell her ’bout that Mosquito either. But she look like she ain’t never heard the name Sojourner neither. And then she start talking about how that Tasmania believe in all that ecological tourism and promoting them ecological detergents.
That a right unusual name, she say. Ain’t got no Tasmanian names like that.
I starts to ask her whether Tasmania is its own whole country or whether it a part of Australia. I sips my coffee and bites into my french toast—they got french toast in Tasmania—and taste them eggs and then he come in, one she been telling me about, the other spliv on the route. One of them tall men, six-four maybe, sorta dark-complexioned from the Tasmanian sun but maybe butterscotch underneath the suntan. But I know who he is: he my ex-husband. He spot m
e and we nod to each other, then he go sit down at one of the booths and waitress she go over and pour his coffee and take his order. Pile of pancakes, maple sugar syrup, scrambled eggs, sausage on the side, orange juice.
At first I thinks maybe he don’t recognize me, but next thing I know he’s bringing these plates over putting ’em on my table. He don’t say nothing, he just put couple plates down on my table, then go back get ’nother coupla plates, then get his coffee, then take the sugar off his table and put it on mine, then he sits down. He pours a little bit of that sugar in his coffee and stirs. I be wanting to tell him about that sugar, ’cause I seen one of them documentaries on that sugar, and me I always uses one of them natural fruit sugars.
You the one they call ’journer, aintcha? Heard about you even in Australia. They kept telling me you in Tasmania now and you and me was on the same route.
I didn’t know if you’d recognize me, I says.
You know I always recognize you, Jane-Nadine.
Him, he say he don’t carry just one sorta product, like I do. Sometimes he might have him a load of them Tasmanian bananas, other time he might be carry some heating fuel product to the folks in the outback—I be thinking they just calls it the outback in Australia, but he be talking about the outback—even palm oil, other time he might be the Tupperware express. Make me laugh when he say that. Didn’t know they be having that Tupperware in Tasmania.
You got a nice laugh, he say. Thought you be older by now, but you look the same to me.
I’m older, I says. Did carry something other than soap once, though, I’m telling him.
What?
Had me this pregnant Mexican woman.
Say what? He be chewing and drinking coffee. He sop a little bit of his eggs up with his toast.
I didn’t know she was there or nothing. Stopped along one of them border roads, you know, that Dairy Mart Road, then heard me a sound like this commotion, thought maybe some coyote back there, you know, or one of them prairie foxes, or one of them horny toads, got my stun gun and my flashlight, and she hiding back there behind one of them detergent crates. She don’t come out of hiding till I shines that light on her. I think she going to have her baby there and then. It ain’t labor pains, though, it hunger pains. I gives her something to eat. Yeah, she thinks I’m gonna turn her in but I don’t. I didn’t even think about turning her in. When she have her baby, she name him Journal’ cause she think that my name. Name him Sanctuary after the movement and Journal after me, or what she thinks is me. Me, I calls him S. J. Ramirez. He a half-Indian baby. One of them Tarahumara Indians. They supposed to be the fiercest Indians. Them Spaniards they supposed to be able to subdue all them Indians except them Tarahumara Indians. She came north to the States and he went south to Chiapas. I think it called Chiapas. He wrote her he want her to return to Mexico, though. And then I think he got involved in that rebellion down there, and then she got a letter from him wanting her to return to Mexico and then she heard from her cousin who were in jail in Middle America. We went out there, but I think her cousin went down there to Cholula or somewhere back in Mexico, so she thinking herself of maybe returning to Mexico, though I don’t think she want to go to Cholula with them rebels on account of Journal and maybe they stay in Mexico City or one of them little border towns just across the border,’ cause he a American citizen. If she do return to Mexico, though, she say she might hire me to drive her cross the border. They’s got a rebellion down there in Cholula, so I told her myself I ain’t think she should take Journal to no rebellion, though I knows when peoples rebels they’s got to rebel. I knows when peoples rebels they’s got to rebel. Course they’s every kind of rebellion. I ain’t no rebel’s rebel, though. Maria say sometimes you’s got to become a rebel’s rebel. She speak real good English now. She thinks I joined the Sanctuary movement or what they calls the new Underground Railroad. I be Ray’s rebel, I be Maria’s rebel, I be Monkey Bread’s rebel, I be Delgadina’s rebel, I be little Journal’s rebel. Maybe I add some more to my list of rebellions, but them is people I know. You know that Ray receives solicitations for rebellion all the time. I think that’s what I means by a rebel’s rebel. I ain’t reformed to rebellion Itself. You’s got to put a name to my rebellion. They is rebels for abstractions. But that Delgadina, she know what I’m talking about. I ain’t told her ’bout Maria and Journal, though, or even about us adventures with Maria’s cousin in Middle America. But that be really funny if I drives her across the border back to Mexico, you know. She ain’t made up her mind yet, though. If she do go back to Mexico, it be for love. It be for that rebel in Cholula. That the first baby named after me, though, or name they thinks is mine. Even she know it ain’t mine, she keep him that name, ’cause that the name she originally think is mine. And her, Maria Ramirez her name. She be a trickster and a jokester, you know, telling me her name Maria Barriga, ’cause barriga that mean belly in Spanish. She think I’m a good woman. Mujer buena. All I knows is all the time I travels along these border roads, the border patrol they stops me and makes sure I ain’t smuggling nothing. Might be two or three other trucks and real smugglers and they stops mines. So that time I really am smuggling somebody and don’t know it. She think I’m a good woman ’cause I took her to the Sanctuary priest. Truth of the matter is I took her to ’em as much for them border patrol as for her. You know what I mean? That be funny if I drive her back across that border to Mexico.
Are you?
If she makes up her mind about going back to Mexico. But Chiapas—I think it Chiapas—that supposed to be one of the poorest Mexican states. In southern Mexico. That’s where Cholula is. She turned the front of her house into a store, you know, so I come to buy one of her dolls, you know, so she starts telling me about her rebel, and she thinking of going to that rebellion. I ain’t actually come to buy one of her dolls, though I usually buys one of her dolls when I’m there. ’Cause they’s superior to factory dolls, and sometimes I use her dolls as promotional items, you know. But mostly I likes to collect them for myself, ’cause they is like art, you know. So I’m the one convinces her not to take Journal to that rebellion. Now if it were her her ownself, I could consider driving her to southern Mexico, but they wouldn’t let us get close to no rebellion in my truck, and anyway now they’s contained a lot of them rebels, but they’s still rebels in them mountains down there. And she knows where they is. But us ain’t no professional rebels. Some people is supposed to help her rebel to escape north. I believe they’s always helped him to escape north. So the thing is he don’t trust America, he don’t want to cross the border into America, so we’s got to decide on Mexico, I mean she’s got to decide on Mexico. But I already told her I’d drive her to Mexico City.
When I come to see Maria and Journal she is packing her suitcases. She’s got her big suitcase and Journal’s little suitcase. I think maybe she has found out where her cousin was, the one that they’d jailed in the Middle American commonwealth on account of her being a illegal alien and claimed it ’cause they ain’t no what else to do with no illegal alien. Least that was their first claim. Then nobody claimed anything, and there weren’t even any documents to prove Maria’s cousin had even been originally arrested.
You found your cousin? I asks. Is she in Mexico somewhere?
She continues packing her suitcase with mostly blue jeans and sweatshirts, the skirt I first saw her wearing and several blouses, but points to a bunch of newspaper articles on her doll table. I calls it her doll table, ’cause that’s the table where she make her dolls. I stands reading them articles and they’s all about some kinda rebellion in Chiapas which somewhere in southern Mexico and talking about how some of them rebels have escaped into the mountains. They say something about the Zapatistas the same people ¡heard Ray talking about. The government have some of them rebels and some of them others have escaped. She ain’t sure which rebels they have and which rebels escaped, but seem like she know everybody in Chiapas who might be amongst them rebels. I don’t know if it’s the same
rebellion that Ray was talking about or whether this is a different rebellion. I ain’t sure what that rebellion is about, but most all rebellions is for the same reason, for some kinda freedom, or some kinda power to help create freedom, but seem like one of them rebels is connected with Maria, her husband and lover or maybe the daddy of Journal, cept I ain’t exactly sure. Seem like she going back to Mexico to that rebellion and taking Journal. She ain’t say that, but her pointing to them newspapers when I ask why she packing make me think that.
Naw, you ain’t taking my baby to no rebellion, I says.
Your baby? She still packing to go to that rebellion.
I know he your baby, Maria. I know Journal is your baby. But he name after me, or the name you thinks is mine, and when you says his name you invokes the name you thinks is me, and you ain’t taking him to Mexico to no rebellion. They tells me that I has a man named Big Warrior in my ancestry, who fought the powers, who didn’t even war chant first, but he didn’t take his babies to war. He didn’t take his babies to no rebellion. Least I don’t think so.
The baby looking like he ready to go to the rebellion. Like he a little Big Warrior hisself. He got on little baby dungarees and she got his baby clothes and everything packed, and he standing up saying, Jiba jiba jiba jiba jiba. And the way he saying it it sound like some rebel song. Yeah, he sounding like he ready to go to that rebellion, even though he just a little baby.
Then I gets the story that it seem like her husband and lover who the daddy of Journal sent her North on account of her going to have that baby and didn’t tell her about the rebellion, though it was only a proposed rebellion then, but now she know about the rebellion and able to read them newspapers for herself, which tell about that rebellion and she on her way back to Mexico.
Naw, you ain’t, I says.
Yes, I am.
Then we reasons about it. You’s got to talk to Ray’s people first, I says. You’s got to talk to Ray’s people first. I think they has all the logistics on that rebellion.